"Guardian Spirit" by Don Anelli

Guardian Spirit

by Don Anelli

Nicole and Becky raced each other home, desperate to be out of school for the Christmas break. Being fifty feet away from the main office building, this was a fun little game that was afforded to them by where they lived.

Nicole barely beats Becky and enters their house, teasing her along the way. Mom would still be about an hour away, so they threw their backpacks down and grabbed a snack from the kitchen. The layout of the house, with a garland strung up on the counters and kitchen island, a series of holiday-themed embroidered pictures on the walls, stuffed reindeer on every available surface, and a porcelain Christmas village in the corner next to the tree, filled the room with the holiday spirit.

Settling in to watch TV, Becky notices the strange box on the dining table in front of the sofa, wrapped in Santa paper with no note on it. Nicole doesn’t recognize it, nor does she know who it belongs to, so she puts it under the tree with the rest of the presents and fires up Netflix on the TV.

By the time their mother comes home and settles in, she comes over to check on the girls, only to freak out suddenly. Throwing the clutter on the dining table aside, checking under the couch cushions, and running around frantically looking for something, but muttering under her breath so the girls can’t hear her.

By the time they manage to calm her down and figure out she’s looking for the present that was on the table, Nicole tells her she put it under the tree.

Mom’s face drops, and the cold look in her eyes sends a shiver down the kids’ backs.

She quickly hurries them together and tries to gather the kids out of the house, but almost immediately, Mom is sent flying backwards into the tree, flying about fifteen feet across the living room with no one else in the room. Becky and Nichole are thrown into a state of shock, crying out for their mom, but are unable to reach her. An invisible force field is preventing them from getting to their mom.

Mom gets to her feet and quickly tells the girls to run, but her mouth is smashed in before she can complete the instruction, knocking her jaw apart in a flurry of broken bone, teeth, and bloodshed. Her face is repeatedly struck until it’s a pile of goo spreading across the floor, staining the wall, and the presents left by the tree.

Taking Mom’s instructions, Becky tries to take Nicole away from the tree and out of the house, so they won’t be stuck looking at their dead mother, but she takes a step or two before her arm is twisted to the point it breaks and splinters through the skin. Nicole can only stare, frozen in fear, at the sight of her sister’s suddenly broken arm as she screams in pain and terror in front of her.

From the tree behind her, the tinsel comes to life and wraps itself around Becky’s throat, yanking her back as she struggles for breath under the choking fringe. Nicole goes to intervene and save her sister, but the tinsel retracts even faster and pulls Becky into the tree. It begins shaking and rattling as if there’s a struggle behind the branches and ornaments, without Nicole being able to tell what’s going on.

Then comes the stabbing sounds and the unmistakable sound of squelching flesh.

Becky is then thrown out of the tree, the unbroken arm now broken itself with a strand of tinsel wrapped around it, and several ornaments stuck to Becky’s frozen face. She lands on the sofa and bounces to the floor, dead.

Cowering in fear, Nicole tries to cover herself from the tree, whimpering and crying uncontrollably. After what seems like several minutes with nothing happening, she slowly starts to look up around her, waiting for her death from the tree.

Instead, a tall, dark, imposing figure it standing over her. A head like a horse with goat horns sticking out of its side, shoulder pads with spikes sticking out, and the tail waving eerily behind it. It’s looking down on her, cooing gently, as if waiting for something.

As if waiting for Nicole to do something.

Unsure of what’s going on, the creature standing there not doing anything, and her mother and sister just killed in front of her, Nicole slowly gets to her feet. As she tries to leave, a voice rings out in her head, cold and ominous but strangely soothing. Introducing itself as Robbsin, it says it’s now her spirit guardian and will follow her to the ends of the Earth now that she freed it. Anyone who does her harm will feel the wrath it just been unleashed, and it will follow her for the rest of her life.

Because she touched the wrapped gift.

In shock and disbelief, Nicole goes to exit the house, in pure panic and terror at what just happened. She makes it down the steps and runs right into the mailman, almost knocking him over. As he tries to make sense of why Nicole would do what she just did, he’s thrown to the ground and begins to get dragged into the duffel bag carrying the mail as if some supernatural force is acting upon him. The mail is thrown onto the ground around Nicole as the body of the mailman disappears within the bag, never to be seen again.

Nicole finds herself looking at the bag with the wrapped present suddenly in her hands. The same cold, ominous voice as before pops back into her head, saying, ‘You’re welcome.’